One 40-year-old woman in five has no children

According to Statistics Finland's statistics on
the population structure, 21 per cent of the 40-year-old
women resident in Finland have not given birth to a child. The
proportion of women without children has been growing slowly but
constantly. In 1990, the share of 40-year-old women without
children was 15 per cent.

Share of 35, 40 and 45-year-old women having given
birth among women born in 1951 to 1975

The starting of a family is being postponed to an ever later
age. In 1990, the share of mothers among 30-year-old women was
67 per cent. At the end of 2010, only around one
30-year-old woman in two had become a mother. If this development
continues, there is a threat of an ever growing share of women
remaining totally childless in future.

In Ostrobothnia, the share of those without children among
40-year-old women was 15 per cent at the end of 2010. In
the region of Uusimaa, one 40-year-old woman in four has no
children. Among the women living in Helsinki, 36 per cent
have not given birth to a child.

The marital status of 29 per cent of all 40-year-old women was
unmarried, while 57 per cent were married and 13 per cent divorced.
Two out of three of the 40-year-old women with no children were
unmarried, one in four were married and 8 per cent were
divorced.

Persons with no religious affiliation already number over one
million

The Population Information System includes data on whether a
person is member of a religious community registered in Finland.
The number of persons with no religious affiliation exceeded the
one million mark in 2010. Thus, nearly every fifth person in
Finland is not a member of a religious community registered in
Finland. The number of persons with no religious affiliation has
doubled in two decades.

Share of persons not belonging to religious
communities by gender 1990–2010

Share of persons with no religious affiliation is highest in
Uusimaa and lowest in South Ostrobothnia

At the end of 2010, there were 1,032,429 persons with no
religious affiliation. The share of those with no religious
affiliation was clearly higher among men, at 22 per cent,
than among women, 16 per cent. There were also large
regional differences. In the region of Uusimaa, the share of
population with no religious affiliation was 27 per cent,
while in South Ostrobothnia the respective share was
nine per cent.

Only one foreign-language speaker out of five is member of a
religious community registered in Finland

42 per cent of the 25 to 34-year-old men
living in the region of Uusimaa are not members of any religious
community. Of the foreign-language speaking population resident in
Finland, 82 per cent are not members of any religious
community registered in Finland. Among the
25 to 39-year-old foreign-language speaking men, the
share is nearly 90 per cent.

At the end of 2010, 78 per cent of the population
belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.
One per cent were members of the Orthodox Church of
Finland and another one per cent belonged to some other
religious communities. At the end of 1980, 90 per cent of
the population belonged to the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland.